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Romantic Currents
May 16 • 7:00 pm – 9:00 pm
Piano virtuoso David Fung joins CMH ensembles in two romantic-era gems that ripple with expressive beauty and emotional depth.
Program:
FARRENC Sextet in C Minor, Op. 40
DVORAK Piano Quintet, Op. 81
David Fung
Praised for his “ravishing and simply gorgeous” performances in the The Washington Post, pianist David Fung is widely recognized for interpretations that are elegant and refined, yet intensely poetic and uncommonly expressive. With a repertoire of over sixty concertos, Mr. Fung regularly performs as a soloist with the world’s premier ensembles including the Cleveland Orchestra, the Detroit Symphony, the Israel Philharmonic, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, and the San Francisco Symphony working with conductors such as Marin Alsop, Gustavo Dudamel, Stanislav Kochanovsky, Lan Shui, and Christian Zacharias. An incisive interpreter of Mozart and Bach, Mr. Fung has collaborated with the Israel, Los Angeles, Melbourne, Orpheus, and Saint Paul Chamber Orchestras, and the Orchestra of St. Luke’s.
In 2025, Mr. Fung gave the first major United States performance of Grażyna Bacewicz’s Piano Concerto (1949) with the California Symphony under Donato Cabrera. Other highlights of the current season include the world premiere of Pat Carrabré’s Piano Concerto: A Guest on These Lands (2024) and Beethoven’s Choral Fantasy with the Kamloops Symphony. He also appears as soloist and conductor in performances of Bach’s complete Brandenburg Concertos at the Northern Lights Music Festival, alongside engagements with Orchestra Wellington, the Baltimore Chamber Orchestra, and the OK Mozart Festival. Festival and recital appearances this season include performances at the Anchorage, Arizona Friends of Chamber Music, Asheville, Bridgehampton, Borromeo, Calgary Pro Musica, Grand Canyon, and Savannah Music Festivals, as well as concerts at Boston University, Lee University, Northern Arizona University, UCLA, and Wofford College.
Recent performances include Mr. Fung’s Los Angeles Philharmonic debut performing with Yuja Wang and Gustavo Dudamel, following his appearance with the Detroit Symphony Orchestra in celebration of Orchestra Hall’s Centennial. His highly acclaimed debut with the Cleveland Orchestra at the Blossom Music Festival was described as “everything you could wish for” (Cleveland Classical), and he was praised as “an agile and alert interpreter of Mozart’s crystalline note-spinning” (The Plain Dealer). The following week, he performed Rachmaninoff’s Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini at Beijing’s National Stadium for the Olympic Summer Festival. In addition to the West Coast premiere of Chen Qigang’s Piano Concerto: Er Huang with the San Francisco Symphony, Mr. Fung’s has performanced with the Albany, Arkansas, California, Charleston, Kitchener-Waterloo, Israel, Las Vegas, Marin, New Haven, Niagara, San Diego, Southwest Florida, Sun Valley, and Tucson Symphonies, as well as with the National Orchestra of Belgium, National Taiwan Symphony, New Japan Philharmonic, Nordwestdeutsche Philharmonie, Symphony Tacoma, Tampere Philharmonic, and Xiamen Philharmonic. He has also appeared with Australia’s major orchestras, including the Melbourne, Queensland, and Sydney Symphony Orchestras.
As a recitalist and chamber musician, Mr. Fung is a frequent guest artist at prestigious festivals and venues worldwide. Notable festival appearances include Aspen, Blossom, Caramoor, Edinburgh, Hong Kong Arts, Ottawa, Ravinia, and Tippet Rise. At his Edinburgh International Festival debut, the Edinburgh Guide described Mr. Fung as being “impossibly virtuosic, prodigiously talented… and who probably does ten more impossible things daily before breakfast.” He has captivated audiences at Carnegie Hall, the Kennedy Center, Lincoln Center, Louvre, Gewandhaus, Palais des Beaux-Arts, and Zürich Tonhalle, as well as the major halls in Asia, including the Beijing Concert Hall, Guangzhou Opera House, Hong Kong Town Hall, Seoul Arts Center, Shanghai Oriental Art Center, Taiwan National Concert Hall, and Tianjin Grand Theater. Notable collaborations include performances with the Brentano, Dover, Jupiter, and Verona Quartets.
In August 2020, the Steinway and Sons Label released Mr. Fung’s Transcendent Beethoven, which was featured on Apple Music’s Best of Beethoven, a list of outstanding releases of the composer during the 250th anniversary of his birth. The album follows the label’s acclaimed 2019 release of Mr. Fung’s first installment of the complete Mozart sonatas. Fung’s Mozart album was called “undeniably bold” (AllMusic Guide) and praised by Boston’s WCRB as “heartbreaking”, adding that “Fung relishes the art of exploring Mozart’s characters – giving them freedom to breathe, and casting them in darkness and light to help reveal their humanity.” Mr. Fung can also be heard on more than a dozen accoladed releases by Pentatone, Orchid, Genuin, Yarlung, and Naxos.
Mr. Fung garnered international attention as a laureate of the Queen Elisabeth International Music Competition in Brussels and the Arthur Rubinstein Piano International Masters Competition in Tel Aviv. In Tel Aviv, he was further distinguished by the Chamber Music and Mozart Prizes, awarded in areas in which Mr. Fung has a passionate interest. He was the first piano graduate of the prestigious Colburn Conservatory in Los Angeles where he studied with John Perry, going on to work with Peter Frankl and Claude Frank at Yale University, and Arie Vardi at the Hochschule für Musik, Theater und Medien in Hannover. In 2002, he won the ABC Young Performer of the Year Award while studying with Margaret Hair in Sydney and has received further artistic guidance from piano luminaries including András Schiff, Alfred Brendel, and Leon Fleisher. Making his home in Vancouver and New York City, Mr. Fung serves on the faculties of the Manhattan School of Music and the University of British Columbia and is a curator at the Chan Center for the Performing Arts in Vancouver. Mr. Fung is a Steinway Artist.
Mr. Fung is represented in the Americas by Arabella Arts, Australia and New Zealand by Cinque Artist Management, and in China, Hong Kong and Taiwan by QLHW Management Ltd.
Galliard Strings
Fueled by passion—and sometimes coffee and tea—the Galliard Strings’ romance with the music of Beethoven, Brahms, Schubert, Shostakovich, and many others is unparalleled. Founded in 1982, the Galliard is renowned throughout the islands for its uncompromising commitment to performing classical and modern music of the highest caliber. All four current members of the Galliard Quartet are also members of the Hawai‘i Symphony Orchestra and are experienced teachers and music educators in the community. The Galliard’s 1995 album “Songs of Lili’uokalani” pays respectful homage to Hawaiian musical history through modern arrangements of the Queen’s compositions by Robert Cazimero, Angel Pena, Byron Yasui, and other local composers. Recent highlights include collaborations with acclaimed pianists Joyce Yang, Wu Han, and Billy Childs; Hawaiian vocal artist Raiatea Helm; local composers Michael Thomas Foumai, Takuma Itoh, Leilehua Lanzilotti, and Jon Magnussen; and silent film historian Rick Benjamin.
Spring Wind Quintet
The Spring Wind Quintet performs concerts and educational services throughout Hawai‘i, nationally and internationally. Repertoire includes contemporary, pops, and Hawaiian music, plus the standard classics. Interest in new music and world music has inspired the creation of several original works and numerous new arrangements. Collaborating with their string, brass, and keyboard colleagues in Chamber Music Hawai‘i, the Spring Wind Quintet has performed and also commissioned many works for expanded and mixed instrumentation. The quintet’s work with Hawaiian artists led to a Grammy nomination in 2013 (“Malama Ko Aloha”) and a Nā Hōkū Hanohano nomination in 2016 (“Paka’a Lanakila!”). Spring Wind Quintet is a recipient of grants from Chamber Music America’s Ensemble Residency program and from the National Endowment for the Arts.